


Autumn

by pippinmctaggart



Category: Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Romance, Schmoop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-10-19
Updated: 2004-10-19
Packaged: 2018-03-30 21:43:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3952843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pippinmctaggart/pseuds/pippinmctaggart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Billy always knows what Dom needs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Autumn

**Author's Note:**

> My honest thanks to [](http://elmathelas.livejournal.com/profile)[**elmathelas**](http://elmathelas.livejournal.com/) for her reassurance and for the last-minute beta job.

“You know what we haven’t done in a while?” Dom asked idly, fingers absently tapping out a complex, repeating rhythm on the wooden arm of the chair.

Billy wondered how Dom could do that, when he wasn’t even paying attention. Not particularly musical, was Dom, and compound rhythms didn’t usually come automatically. “What?”

“We haven’t gone for a hike in a long time. Not since…” he paused, thinking. “Not since that trip to Sweden.”

“You want to go up to the mountains for a hike?” Billy asked, a little skeptically.

Dom’s head tilted as he considered. “Maybe not the mountains—maybe not a hike, then. A tramp? Could we go for a tramp, do you think?”

“It’s a good day for it,” Billy admitted.

“You need to get off your arse anyway. Where could we go?”

“I’ll ignore that comment, Sloth-man,” Billy mock-glared at him, and then his face softened a bit as he asked, “What do you need? Just the walk outside, or do you need green?”

Dom smiled at him lopsidedly. “You know me too well.”

“I should, by now. You’ll get used to Glasgow, Dom, don’t worry. There’s green here, you just need to learn where to find it.”

“Show me?”

Billy rose to his feet. “I know just the place.”

 

 

 

They walked down the path together, Dom looking around him, Billy smiling, his hands in his jacket pockets.

“It’s a nice place to come in the winter,” he said. “It’s nice in the greenhouses. Warm and steamy and smelling of earth.”

“Sounds good,” Dom answered absently.

Billy led the way across a short expanse of grass, around two frost-straggly flower beds, to a bench underneath a sweeping old willow tree, its dusty olive leaves fluttering. He sat down, hands flat on the wooden seat, looking over as Dom sat beside him. “Green enough for you?”

Dom looked out over the vast grassy lawn in front of him, leading up to the elegant greenhouse. “Yeah. ‘S nice.”

Billy watched him for a moment. “What’s missing?”

“I’m not sure. It _is_ nice,” he said quickly, briefly touching the back of Billy’s hand with his fingers before returning them to his lap. “I’ll be back here. It’s just…Botanical gardens are just…too cultivated for me today. And…I need—I need—“

Billy waited.

“Autumn,” Dom said quietly.

Billy rose again, eyes hinting at pleasure. “All right. Come with me, then. I should have thought of this before.”

They walked back across the grass to the path, and Billy gestured him in a different direction. “It’ll take a few minutes to get there. And you’ll even get a bit of a hike, because it’s down a dirt path. Sound all right?”

“Sounds all right,” Dom smiled at him, gave him a nudge with his shoulder. They went single file through the stone stile beside the holly tree.

 

 

“You’re right, this is a hike,” Dom grumbled as he caught onto a tree branch above him to keep from sliding any further. “A hike to our _deaths_ , most likely, but thanks all the same, Bill, it’s been fun knowing you.”

“Quit your whinging,” Billy panted as he stood precariously balanced on a small patch of dry ground. “I didn’t know it would be this muddy. Besides, the worst that could happen is you’ll land on your arse and get your trousers a bit clarty.”

“I could do more than get dirty, I could slide down until I catch my foot on a root and break an ankle and tumble down the precipice.”

“ _Precipice?_ Hardly,” he snorted. “And I thought I was the one who didn’t like heights.”

“Fine. It’s not a precipice. Fuck,” Dom muttered as his left foot slid out from underneath him again. He clutched the tree branch tighter. “It’s a chasm, then.”

“Oh, don’t be such a fearty-cat. It’s a wee hill down to the river.”

Dom glanced underneath his raised arm at the river below. “Bil- _ly_. If you’re going to use one of Elijah’s daft Americanisms, at least use it right. It’s _‘fraidy_ cat. And I am not.”

Billy chuckled. “Give me your hand. I’ll get you over here.” He grasped Dom’s wrist when he stretched his arm out, pulled him firmly and safely over to the drier soil he stood on. “You said you wanted autumn,” he teased. “Autumn and mud go hand in hand.”

“And in shoe and in sock and I think even in my ear,” Dom complained, trying to keep the smile from his lips. “I’m going to need a shower when we get home.”

“That can be arranged,” Billy murmured before letting him go and continuing slowly and carefully down the path.

 

 

They finally reached the bottom of the mucky trail, which opened out onto a gently arched stone footbridge over the river. Halfway across, Dom leaned his elbows on the cast-iron railing, looked upstream, and sighed.

“Better?” Billy asked quietly, stopping to lean back against the railing on the opposite side behind Dom.

“Better.” Dom watched the leaves eddy quickly past below him, caught in the current.

“Still not quite it, though, is it?”

“It’s beautiful, Bill. I can’t believe how quiet it is down here. We’re in the middle of the city, but it’s so peaceful.”

“But it’s still not quite it, is it?”

Dom didn’t answer.

Billy smiled. “I didn’t think so. Come on, we’re almost there.”

He turned at that. “You mean this wasn’t it?”

“No. C’mon.”

 

 

“This is what I think you needed,” Billy finally said as they rounded a sharp corner in the path on the far side of the river. “Tell me how close I came, yeah?” But the soft, wide smile that spread across Dom’s face was all the answer he needed.

Dom walked ahead of Billy, just looking up at the trees, at the poplars with their bright gold leaves, the maples with their red orange yellow purple, the hornbeam with their jade turning to deep scarlet. Against the green, green grass that was invariably Scotland, the trees fairly glowed in the dying afternoon sun, and Dom’s eyes reflected them. He twisted, walking backwards for a moment in front of Billy, and grinned at him. “Pretty close, I suppose.”

“You suppose? You suppose, do you?” Billy scolded him with upward-curving lips. “Turn around before you trip and hurt yourself, daft git.”

Dom turned. He wandered off the path, fingers reaching out beside him to pluck some leaves off the shrub he passed, but his eyes never left the trees.

Billy followed a little ways behind him, strolling, breathing deeply. For Dom it was visual, tactile, but for Billy it was scent. He smelled the sandstone-tinted brown water of the river, the damp moss growing on the rocks and the fallen branches that lay all day in the shade, the grass that still smelled verdant, rural, the dry musk of decaying leaves. Inordinately glad Dom had suggested this outing, Billy followed him under the trees, not noticing when Dom rounded a slender trunk to examine him.

“Bill. Stop.”

The tone of his voice stopped Billy dead in his tracks. “What?”

“Hold still.”

“What? Is there something on me?” Billy demanded, apprehensive. “Is there a gigantic fucking bug on me or something?”

Dom laughed quietly, with delight. “No, you _fearty_ -cat. There’s nothing on you. Just stand there for a minute.”

Billy stood; patient at first but growing increasingly restless as Dom by turns stared at him, circled him, craned his head back to look up through the leaves. “Dom, what the hell—“

“Shush. You don’t see it, do you?”

“How can I answer you if I _shush?_ ” he grumbled. “See what?”

“The light. There’s something…it’s the light coming through the leaves, there’s…”

Billy relaxed, took three steps back to lean up against a tree and wait for him to finish his thoughts.

“There’s a…luminescence,” Dom mused, sounding like he was talking to himself but turning to look at Billy to make sure he understood.

He nodded.

“It goes beyond a glow,” Dom continued, treading around Billy, around and amongst the trees, the odd twig snapping underfoot. He tilted his head up again. “Amazing, aren’t they?”

Billy smiled. “Why don’t you just hug one and have done with it?” he teased.

“Wanker,” Dom said fondly. “What makes you think I didn’t when you weren’t looking? Stay there.” He walked out from underneath the gold red orange trees, going back almost to the path, and then turned to look, eyes sweeping the trees, the cool spaces beneath, and lingering on Billy, still lounging against a tree with his hands behind him, palms against the bark. He walked back over. “Coming through these leaves, the light—its aspect is altered.”

“Its aspect is altered,” Billy repeated, a statement concealing a question.

“Yes. The…the quality of the light is extraordinary under here. And just now,” Dom moved towards him, moved close, ran a fingertip along Billy’s cheekbone. “Just now, I figured out what it is. Looking at you, I know what it is.”

Billy was enthralled, and spoke softly. “What?”

“You have the look of Lothlorien upon you.”

His breath was stolen completely, and it took eternal seconds to find it again.

“The mallorn trees, you know?” Dom continued quietly, quoting. “‘There are no trees like the trees of that land. For in the autumn their leaves fall not, but turn to gold.’” His hand dropped from Billy’s cheek but he stayed close. “When I read that, I always thought of the trees casting this unearthly—because of course it had to be unearthly if it had to do with the Elves, you see—this unearthly, mystical golden light. That the very _light_ inside Lothlorien was somehow different, and it made even the air different. That the light had substance, had form, if only you knew how to catch it in your hand just… _so_.” His fingers grasped slowly, gently at the empty air. “And that is the light that’s here, that’s on your skin and making you…shimmer.”

Billy’s mouth opened, but it took him a moment to find his voice. When he did, it was low, husky. “You’re a hopelessly romantic sod, aren’t you?”

He smiled. “Yes. Do I surprise you?”

“Constantly. Dom, love—“

Dom looked around, saw that for the moment at least they were alone, and leaned in to softly, tenderly kiss Billy’s lips. When he drew back, he opened his eyes to meet Billy’s, and his breath caught at what the rarefied light was doing to the endless depth of green. “Incredible,” he whispered, rapt.

“Dom—“ Billy breathed.

“I wish we weren’t in the city, Bills. I wish we were out in the country somewhere, so I could make love to you right now, under these trees, in this light.”

Billy surged forward, grasping Dom’s face between his palms and kissing him with heat and passion, walking him backwards until his back was against the wide smooth trunk of a radiant orange maple. Billy moaned against Dom’s lips, and Dom’s arms wrapped around Billy as his mouth opened, deepening the kiss, and the two were lost in the sight sound scent of autumn and each other.

Eventually the distant bark of a dog intruded on their private realm, and they pulled apart, lips kiss-swollen and eyes slightly glazed.

“Billy—“ Dom breathed, chest heaving.

Billy pressed up against him once more, took his wrists and curved his arms backwards, following the round of the tree trunk. “Remind me why we can’t make love right here, right now?” His eyes were trained on Dom’s slightly open mouth.

Dom shuddered. “Oh God, Bills—we can’t. It wouldn’t be wise. Or—or safe. Not for us.”

Billy knew that carried more than one meaning, and he sighed, resting his forehead against Dom’s. “No. No, you’re right.”

After a moment in which they both tried to gather themselves, Dom gently pushed Billy away. “Someone’s coming. Let me look at you, Bills. Let me see you in the light of Lothlorien again.” He stepped away from Billy, watching his face, his neck, his hair, his hands as he circled around him, as he paced a path around and amongst the trees and Billy.

Billy finally said softly, “Let’s go home, Dom. Let’s go before this enchantment you’ve thrown over me fades. We’ll go home, yeah?”

“Yeah. Yeah, let’s go, love.”

They turned together and headed back the way they had come, but bypassing the footbridge back to the muddy, slippery trail in favour of the wide firm one they were on. As they climbed the stairs out of the shallow river valley onto the road, onto a wide bridge over the water, Billy suddenly said, “Tomorrow we’re going to the estate agents’.”

“We’re what?” Dom asked, surprised. “Why?”

“We’re getting a house, Dom,” he said with true intent, his words tumbling faster as he went on. “A house just outside the city, with a garden. And in that garden I’m planting maples, and poplars, and hornbeams, and any other tree I can find that turns colour in the autumn so that you’ll always have autumn every year and maybe we can find Lothlorien in the garden and I can make love to you in that extraordinary, luminescent light that you see.”

Dom had to clear his throat before he could respond, and even then his voice was husky as he said, “You really are a hopelessly romantic sod, aren’t you?”

Billy smiled at him. “Yes. Do I surprise you?”

“Constantly.”


End file.
